HERE THEY COME TO SAVE THE DAY
America? Bad, right? Militaristic, imperialist? Evil? From the news today:
- U.S. helicopters rescued dozens of desperate and weak tsunami survivors, including a young girl clutching a stuffed Snoopy dog, as the American military relief operation reached out to remote areas of Indonesia with cartons of food and water on Monday.
Funny how the world went from Yankee Go Home to Help Us, America in the time it took for the wave to hit.
- Although the United States was not among the first at the scene after last week's natural disaster thousands of miles from American shores, it is now spearheading the international relief effort and delivering more supplies than any other nation. A U.S. warship strike group carrying thousands more Marines was headed in to help.
Chintzy, that's what they called Americans. Chintzy when not torturing poor terroris... er, insurge... no, political prisoners at Gitmo and Abu Ghraib.
- The American pilots ferried the survivors to a medical field station in Banda Aceh. The ones not rushed on stretchers were placed on a blue plastic sheet, among them a young girl clutching a stuffed Snoopy dog. Some cried, and aid workers stroked their arms and backs to comfort them. They were given chocolate wafers, water, sweaters and T-shirts.
Evil Americans, spreading their capitalistic poison chocolate and water and sweaters and t-shirts.
- More American help was coming. The USS Bonhomme Richard and two other warships carrying a Marine expeditionary unit, dozens of helicopters and tons of supplies steamed into the Indian Ocean on Monday to join relief operations off Sumatra and Sri Lanka.
"We've been racing across the ocean," said Rear Adm. Chris Ames, commander of the strike force.
The strike group, which had been headed to the Persian Gulf, was diverted while near the Pacific island of Guam. Ames said the Marines' primary responsibilities would include transporting food and medical supplies.
The Pentagon also has decided to send the USNS Mercy, a 1,000-bed hospital ship based at San Diego, to join the relief effort, officials said.
Yeah, yeah, but everyone knows what the problem is, right? So America's helping save lives. Big deal- what about solving the inequity beteen rich countries and poor countries? Could the tsunami disaster be a turning point for the world, making them finally tackle global poverty? That's what the Independent's asking very important people like comic impressionist Rory Bremner, who opines:
- On an individual level, it is not just about what we are prepared to give, but what we are prepared to give up. Having left Afghanistan and Iraq in their wake, can our leaders be trusted to fight a war on poverty?
Well, you know, if Rory Bremner says the West "left Afghanistan and Iraq in their wake," it MUST be a bad thing. You know, he does comic impressions- that makes him an expert on good and evil. And Bremner the Expert says the war on terrorism is a bad thing. Then there's Greenpeace Executive Director Stephen Tindale:
- It seems churlish to say it, but while it's relatively easy for most of us to give £50, it would be much harder for us to make the changes in our modern lifestyles that are needed if we are to move to a fairer world.
Which raises the question: how do you get to a fairer world? What's fair? Should everyone have the same money, the same opportunity, the same everything? Yes? OK, then, I guess a brain surgeon should be paid the same as someone who pushes a broom, and they should both be paid the same as someone who refuses to work. That would be fair, no? No? Then what is fair? How much should be reallocated from "rich" to "poor"? And who should administer that transfer?
(crickets)
Here's "comedian" Bill Bailey:
- It was the same after 11 September. Everyone said it was a great opportunity to try to understand the world but it was used by the US as a reason to go on a rampaging adventure in Afghanistan and Iraq.
The jury may be out on Iraq, but Afghanistan? "Rampaging"? I guess Bill Bailey liked the Taliban just fine. Meanwhile, artist Dinos Chapman sez:
- Western capitalism demands that people must be impoverished. I cannot think that anything will change this year, because we are the ones who have made the world the way it is. I don't believe in altruism.
And there's the far left in a nutshell- they don't believe that people are willing to give to the less fortunate just because it's the moral thing to do, because they don't believe there are such things as morals. Altruism? No, no, people are intrinsically evil, don't you know? (Those multi-millions Americans are sending to charities to help the tsunami victims? The military aid? The medication donated by pharmaceutical companies? Nonexistent- it's altruism, ergo it isn't real) And capitalism is bad, because it rewards those who actually work hard and achieve and excel. That's unfair- under big bad Western capitalism, you have to WORK to succeed. It's far better when all you have to do is occasionally take a dump on the floor and put a sign next to it and call it art and the government hands you a grant. THAT'S fair. (And it is unlikely to occur to Dinos that artists in non-Western-capitalist societies tend to run into issues like censorship and oppression, unless he assumes those are small prices to pay to avoid actually having to compete in the open market of ideas and commerce)
Finally, the King of the Loony Left, Anthony "Tony Benn" Wedgwood-Benn, coming back from extreme obscurity to say this:
- It may make people realise that the UN needs to be well-equipped and funded. If people diverted money from weapons and war, we have the technology and money to be able to help - if we decide to do that.
The U.N. gets an enormous amount of money already. Nobody holds it accountable for anything. And the moment anyone actually looks into what the U.N. does with the money, the stanch of scandal wafts out so powerfully that the leadership has to hold an emergency meeting to deal with the Secretary General's incompetence and the corruption of the organization in general. Let's divert money from weapons and war and give it to them. And then we can watch as terrorists kill without fear of reprisal and Kim Jong Il bombs South Korea and China takes Taiwan and Tony Benn nods in contentment.
Yes, it's all a) America's fault, b) the West's fault, and/or c) Capitalism's fault. Meanwhile, America, the West, and Capitalism are the ones helping the victims of this disaster while the critics sit home on their wallets and point fingers. Surprise!
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